Sunday, November 05, 2006

Welcome!

We expect widespread problems in Chicago and Cook County related to the November 7, 2006, elections.

This blog has three goals:1) To help citizens effectively route their reports of problems.2) To collect and preserve citizens' write-ups of problems.3)
To publish those write-ups immediately, word for word, on the Internet,
allowing review and study by all other interested citizens.

25 Comments:

Here are the Posting Guidelines* Very long reports are OK.* Be sure to specify-- 1) your county, 2) your town, 3) your ward, 4) the date and time of occurence. * Your name and precinct are desirable, but optional.* When posting, choose the "Anonymous" identity, below the box.* Check later messages to see if we need to contact you.

We'd like to have comments about Early Voting and Absentee Voting as well, such as:

Thursday,
Nov 2, 2006: Early Voting in Evanston (Evanston Civic Center) was
delayed during the afternoon with waits as long as one hour and 10
minutes. The reason - two of the six (33.3%) SEQUOIA Edge2Plus DREs had
malfunctioned and were "out of service."

The election judge responded to a query: "They just quit, that's all I know."

I
voted early on October 17, 2006 at the Normal, Illinois City Hall. The
touch-screen (DIEBOLD) was in an area like a utility closet and I was
alone with the machine. I noticed there was a cord with two keys taped
to the side of the machine - they were the keys to open the memory card
security door on the side of the machine.

I had seen the video
of the "Princeton Hack" of the Diebold machines and realized that I
could have accessed the memory card slot and inserted a maliciously
programmed card. When I brought this to the attention of one of the
election judges, she said that that's the way they come from the County
warehouse (McClean).

Bob
Wilson--serving as a poll judge in Evanston's 4th Ward, 2nd
Precinct--reports by cellphone that, so far, five Cook County precincts
have reported a shortage of archival inkpens. These are the pens that
voters use in marking their paper ballots.

Affected are one precinct in Evanston, one precinct in Riverside, and two precincts (one polling place) in New Trier.

These
precincts received only one or two pens (one precinct received three
pens), even though they have seven paper-ballot marking stations,

Voters
were forced to wait either for an available pen or for an available
touch-screen voting machine. (There are one or two such machines per
precinct.)

Bob reports that he bought some inexpensive,
black-ink ballpoint pens, and that they seem to be serving well as an
substitute for the missing archival inkpens.

Due
to extensive remodeling, the polling station at First United Church in
Oak Park (Cook County, 23rd Precinct) was moved to the nearby main
branch of the public library. As of 7 am this morning (11/07), there
was no sign or notice of any kind informing voters of the new location.

I
went to vote at roughly 6:20 this morning, Ward 44, Precinct 14. There
were five ballot booths set up and one electronic voting machine. The
ballot scanner was rejecting all ballots as defective, so we all had to
use the electronic machine. A pollworker told us the scanner had been
programmed for the wrong district. Using the machine was easy enough,
but the confusion keep me there for over 40 minutes. I also wonder
about the safety of my vote. I'd feel better if I got a copy of the
receipt the machine printed out for my records.

I
taught a pollwatcher group at League of Women Voters on Saturday and
some of the pollwatchers have been calling me today with reports. There
were very few people in attendance, so there's not going to be much
data this year. But here is one for IBIP's records:

5.
"DEFECTIVE BALLOT" visible many times on the optical scanner tape. What
does that mean? "Oh, it's when people don't vote right."

6. Two
people in 18 somehow voted in 10. Tech: "Don't worry about it, at the
end of the day we'll just run them through the 18th Precinct."

7.
She said that there are precinct captains running in and out. I asked
her to first ask to observe the credentials, mark down every name and
address, and then ask who these people were and whether they were
properly credentialed.

In
Chicago, Cook County at the Lawndale Christian Community Center, The
ward 24, pcts 56, 40 were delayed opening for an 1 1/2 hour. It was due
to two problems 1. the physical building did not open until 6:00am 2.
There were missing elections judges who some had the key to open the
voting equipment.

There were over 30 voters who turned around
because they couldn't vote and would be docked for pay. Tried calling
the Board of Elections and no answer. We need to get these pct extended
at least an hour.

cook county, chicago, 4th? (bronzeville near 35th and cottage grove) 6pmive
never voted before so they showed me real quick what to do, simple. i
asked was it both sides and the man said it is, but most people don't
do the other side, its just for the judges so you can skip that. the
whole thing was a waste of time, i didnt plan on voting at all. but out
of curiosity i did, and out of curiosity i looked at the other side and
saw the 3 referendums (weapons, min wage and troops out now). troops out now!

I'm unable to download the comments, tho I hit on the line that should download the comments.

I
live in Bernie Stones ward. The precent captain was in the lobby. When
I came home and walked into the lobby, he approached me with a big
hello. I said hello and went into vote and up to my apartment. Later
when I came down to leave, he was standing right outside the room where
the voting was going on. He said to me what's the matter can't you
smile? I told him I didn't like being bothered on my way to vote and in
my lobby when I walk in. His reply was oh, I know your type. I'm not
sure what my reply was to that!

At the same time, a man from the
immigration rights group came in. I told what had happened, and asked
if this guy was supposed to be in the lobby. He wasn't sure, but would
check into it. Later a friend heard on the news that precent captains
were in the lobbies of buildings in Bernies ward, and that that was
illegal.

Thanks for sending this information out, and for being
a watchdog. If you can, let me know how to download other peoples
comments.

This
concerns some frustration around my own vote in my own precinct -- Cook
County, Evanston, Ward 3, Precinct 7. The polling place was the Baker
Field House on Forest Ave. The time was about 9:00 a.m. I voted the
paper ballot but the scanner was jammed and couldn't be fixed because,
the judge said, he was the only one who could fix it and another worker
had left the polling place "for awhile" and he had his own job to do so
couldn't do it then. I put my ballot in what is supposedly a secure
slot in that machine and the judge assured me that it would be counted.
I objected because, I said, one point was that I should be able to
watch it being scanned and then learn whether I had over- or
under-voted and correct any problem. I would of course also be assured
that my vote was counted. Other ballots had already been put in there,
I could see. The judge expressed some surprise that I was concerned.
I'm sure that this was only ineptitude, understaffing etc. but. . . .
it's a problem.

I did do some pollwatching in the 10th District and have nothing really to report.

Showed
up at the polling place (Boomer's @ Ainslie and Lincoln) around 8am.
Initially chose to do the touch screen voting but couldn't because the
only electronic machine there was not working properly.

Used a
paper ballot, watched the ballot ahead of me get jammed. The election
judge tending the machine wasn't able to remedy the problem, but
another worker who was on the phone attempting to fix the elec. machine
pressed a button and the ballot fed right in. When I fed mine I didn't
get a message as to whether I'd over or undervoted (I didn't vote for
all posts). I left feeling less than confident in Cook county's
balloting process.

Clare
Tobin reports - visited 10 Precincts in City's 50(3, 40(2), 47(4) and
39(1)wards. 3 had major machine malfunctions - 1 Optiscan, 1 DRE
replaced and 1Optiscan not replaced even tho' techs. came out, did not
fix - Optiscan was rejecting ballots, override button not working.
Replaced DRE also malfunctioned, card activator invalid - told by Board
to continue to use DRE in manual mode(famous yellow button that allows
you to vote as many times as you like!)

Noticed only 10% of
votes cast on DREs. 40th Ward judges said they were told not to
enoourage DREs. 2 precincts had Student Tech. judges who were using
their personal laptops in the precinct. Said their trainors didn't say
anything about not bringing computers into polling place!Only 3 out of 10 precincts had marked off Early/Absentee voters from list(allowing voters to vote again) None of the precincts posted the list of eligible Write-in Candidates, or knew about the list.Optiscan pens in short supply in 3 precincts.

from
Neal Resnikoff. I was an election judge in ward 33, 14th precinct. The
day went much more smoothly than in March in the same precinct. There
were some problems--1. The card used to activate the touch-screen
machine got stuck inside the slot after about 12 votes, after being
unwilling to go into the slot several times. On the call downtown by
the tech on hand, the tech was told to reboot the machine. It then
began to work properly once again, but the card jammed inside the
machine at least another two times.

2. There were several
ballots rejected by the opti-scan machine as defective ballots. It was
not clear what was defective about those ballots.

3. There was a problem two or three times of two ballots stuck together being handed to a voter.

4.
There were quite a few ballots spoiled because of over-voting or not
marking the ballot properly. These spoiled ballots are marked as
spoiled and put in a special envelope. The person who spoiled the
ballot then goes to one of the judges to have his or her registration
card marked to indicate that a ballot was spoiled. Since it is very
simple for anyone to read what is on the spoiled ballot, there is no
privacy in that sense for the voter.

5. A new privacy sleeve
was used for ballots this election, but very often the voter pulls the
ballot out of the sleeve to more easily slide it into the opti-scan,
thus exposing the ballot to the eyes of a judge, if the judge chooses
to look.

6. The precinct captain is a poll-watcher, sits at
one end of the judges' table, and asks each person coming in what their
address is, thus making herself very visible to voters coming in. I
need to check to find out if this violates any of the guidelines for
poll watchers.

7. One of the precinct captain's friends
intercepts everyone coming into the front door of the two precinct
polling place, and asks them where they live and points them to the
correct table. The princint captain got very annoyed when I took up the
job of asking people as they came in where they lived and pointing to
the right table. She said I should get back to the post I was supposed
to be at and would report me if I did not, even tho the particular jobs
for each post were being taken care of. I guessed that she wanted the
political worker to be visible to people coming in to vote.

8.
Alderman Mell came in during the day bearing a box of chocolate candy
for each precinct. Naturally, those inside the polling place saw him
and may have even talked with him. I need to find out if this
sanctioned activity.

9. We had trouble figuring out how to use
the override button properly so that an over-vote ballot would be
pulled back into the scanner and not be spit out repeatedly. The trick
was to leave the ballot that was rejected sitting where it came out,
and to then push the over-ride button. The machine would then pull the
ballot back into the machine.

6. We had about 14 special pens
provided, and tried to be scrupulous about getting them returned.
Nevertheless, 5 disappeared during the morning, and then we were short
on pens when the evening rush took place, and voters had to wait.

7.
The polling place was very poorly lit, and some voters had trouble
seeing the ballot in the booths that did not have self-contained
lighting.

8. We had one missing vote we could not account for, and Election Central said not to worry about it.

I
was the station 3 judge. We only had 3 judges for most of the day. One
had been reassigned, and one didn't show up. We did have a walk-in
judge for a few hours around lunchtime, which was a big help. Our
equipment manager was also our supply judge, and the only one of us
who'd served as a judge before.

Lines were long in the morning.
We had only been given five of the optical scan pens, and only four of
them actually wrote. We tried calling the repair station to ask for
more, and only got busy signals for the first hour or so. We did
eventually reach them and were told they'd bring us more pens (which
never happened) and that we could use regular pens as long as the lines
were dark enough. At training, they told us most emphatically NOT to
use regular pens on the optical scan ballot.

We had a poll
watcher from the Democratic Party there most of the day. The morning
poll watcher called in a lawyer about the pens and the fact she'd
noticed a non-zero count listed at the bottom of the machine screen
before the polls opened. (This was the "protected count" that we later
learned was the lifetime count for the machine.)

On the whole,
we had few glitches. While I wasn't always able to insert the DRE card
for voters, I did make sure they knew to press it all the way back. We
only had about five or six instances when I had to use the green button
to pop the card out again because they'd taken too long to put it in or
it hadn't clicked and they got the contact pollworker screen.

Other DRE issues:

One
voter called me over because one of their judge votes had flipped from
yes to no. I told him to try again, and it was fine. We recalibrated
the screen immediately after that voter was finished, and no one else
complained about this sort of thing.

We had one instance where
the save failed when the voter tried to cast his vote. Unfortunately I
was too busy to write down the message at the time, but it wasn't one
of the messages on the troubleshooting card. It was something like
"Save failed at beginning of session(?)." Pushing the green activate
button produced no response, and we ended up having to reboot the
machine. The voter had to vote again, however. Things seemed fine after
that.

When the EM changed the paper rolls on the two DREs, he
sealed them, which brought my attention to the fact they had NOT been
sealed prior to the start of the election. I asked about this, and the
EM said it hadn't been on his instruction sheet. He doubled-checked the
instructions, and eventually decided that it was supposed to have been
sealed before we recieved them. (Can someone verify this?)

Optical Scan Issues:

One
person started to feed in his ballot just before I was about to tell
him to. So when I said "One at a time" he said he'd already fed them
both in. The machine took what he fed in. We were surprised, since we
thought it would spit out the ballots if they were fed in together.
(Can anyone confirm this?) Unfortunately there was nothing we could do
about it at that point. Then, shortly after that, a voter called me
over because she was completely mystified by the paper ballot. In
particular, she wanted to know why she had three of them. Turned out
she had two judge ballots, one of which was filled out... The three
voting judges conferred, and we thought perhaps the extra judge's
ballot might have belonged to the man who thought he'd put in both
ballots at once, so we fed it through.

We had one card (the
judge ballot) rejected as damaged. It did not look damaged in any way.
The voter refused to get a new ballot. (Many people were in a hurry
because of the unexpected wait.) We tried reading it through again, and
on the third or fourth try we flipped it over and the machine read it
without any problems.

Most frequently asked question for the DREs:

Is there any way I can skip that whole printout process next time? (So much for voter-verified paper trails...)

Do I get that printout?

Privacy Issues:

People
don't like using the privacy shield on the paper ballot. Quite a few
try to not take one in the first place. Of the two hundred or so people
who used paper in our precint, I think about 10 actually used it (or
tried to use it) when they were putting their ballots into the optical
scanner. Of those 10, half had trouble getting the ballot into the slot
because the privacy shield was in the way. I suspect it's just too hard
for most people to handle the mechanics of dealing with those three
pieces of paper.

I like the new ballot over the one we used in
the primary. The "fill the arrow" is a much more discrete marking. With
the big black X in the circle method, I felt just about anyone could
see how you voted from across the room if they happened to glance your
way. With this ballot, I had no trouble avoiding seeing how people
voted when they were feeding the ballots into the machine even when
they flashed the paper in my face. (More than one person commented that
they didn't care if people saw how they voted, by the way.)

Post-polling issues:

When
we first tried to consolidate our results, the optical scan cartitridge
failed to read at first. We called in, and the problem was that the
cartridge was not in all the way, even though the indicator light
showed that it was. We were out by 9:30. We had two more people voting
on our consolidated results than on the spindle. One of those was a
provisional voter. Don't know about the other-might be the one that
didn't get saved the first time? We were also missing one white ballot.

Miscellaneous Security Concerns:

At training, they
showed us that the wireless modem gets turned on at the beginning of
the day. Why? You only need it for about 20 minutes when you are
consolidating results. Why leave the machine vulnerable to network
hacks all day long?

When we'd seal things, there seemed to be
nowhere to record the seal number, nor was there any indication that we
should actually do so.

At training, our trainer didn't fully
seal things, and would just take off the seal rather than breaking it.
This seemed a little too easy to do accidentally, especially if it's
what people saw in the training session.

There didn't seem to be
much control over the ballot style slips. It occured to me later that
in a very busy precint, there wouldn't be much stopping someone from
picking up an old one and getting another ballot.

Other observations:

We
had a 60% turnout, which was very gratifying. And though people
grumbled about the wait, it wasn't more than an hour at the worst and I
don't think it kept anyone from voting. The optical scan voters seemed
to be faster than the DRE voters (possibly because they just ignored
the judge ballot, which you can't do on the DRE). I think it was
roughly 50-50 for each machine by the end. Quite a few people picked
optical scan simply because there was a line for the DREs.

Also:
I have a vision-impaired friend who votes in Chicago (not sure what
precinct. He used the audio on the DRE to vote. He was not instructed
to review and cast his ballot: he thought he was finished when it said
"Ballot complete". He called the pollworker over to confirm, and was
told he was done. He firmly believes everyone was doing the best they
could and there was no malicious intent to anything, but he did want to
know if this was normal. I said he should have been instructed to
verify and cast the vote, and that something should have printed out. I
don't know why he wasn't instructed to do so by the audio. We presumed
that the pollworker probably actually cast the vote, which also
shouldn't have happened, but that concerned him less than the lack of
instructions.

I
arrive at the polling place near my house about 3:30 pm. The polling
place is in a side hallway of an old public elementary school.

1. Activating the keycard for the touch-screen.

I
decide to cast my votes on the touch screen (aka "DRE," for "Direct
Recording Electronic") voting machine, so that I can observe such a
machine in operation first-hand.

The DRE has to be activated by a keycard, which in turn must be activated by a "card activator."

A
poll judge tries and fails to get the card activator to work. The
Polling Place Administrator (PPA) goes over to help. The judge tells
her that he's using the passcode that's jotted down on the Post-It note
stuck to the machine. The PPA calls downtown and learns that the
passcode for each precinct is listed on a placard affixed to the
machine. She finds the code, types it into the activator, and the
activator now works.

The PPA takes the keycard over to the
voting machine, inserts it, and shows me that the machine is now
activated. She asks if she should move the machine to I can see the
screen better. I tell her, Yes, that would be good because I'd like to
take some photos of the machine while I'm voting. So she moves the
machine back another foot or so.

While voting, I take three
photos solely of the DRE display. Nothing else in the polling place is
within my camera's field of view. Nor do I use my camera--or even have
it out of my pocket--at any other time while I'm in the polling place.

2. Producing the paper record of my votes.

I encounter no problems with selecting candidates on the DRE, nor with the system for printing out the paper record of my votes.

After I enter all my votes, the machine prints out the first page of the paper record. I give it an OK.

Then
the second page gets printed. I pretend that the page is not OK, and
ask to make a change to my votes. The DRE prints a large block-letter
"VOID" across the bottom of the page; then rolls the page up, out of
sight; and returns me to the vote-selection screen.

I again tell
the machine I'm done. This time I verify and give the OK to all three
pages. When I'm done, the machine prints on the bottom of the last page
a large "speckle" code (not a barcode, but a box containing what looks
like random bits of sand). This presumably is an encoded version of my
votes; but there are no numbers nearby, nor any other way that I can
check the content or the accuracy of the code.

The keycard ejects. I take it, leave the machine, and return the keycard to the judge.

I then tender my pollwatcher credentials to a judge and take a seat at the end of the judges' table.

3. Voters avoiding the DRE.

I
ask the PPA if I was the first person to use the machine today. She
says Yes, people are avoiding the machine, even if they are invited to
use it. She says, seniors especially feel that their votes are safer on
a paper ballot.

3. A problem occuring with the DRE.

After
twenty minutes, another voter asks to use the DRE. When it gives him
trouble, the PPA calls downtown. While on the phone, she says something
like "the green activator button?" She pushes something on the back of
the machine, and then says that the machine is now working.

4. Other pollwatcher acting improperly.

A
person with a poll sheet has been sitting at the entrance to the
polling area. About 30% or 40% of the names are crossed off. Some of
the names have large black dots placed after them in magic marker. He
appears to be a pollwatcher, since he never sits at the judges' table.

Twice
in one hour I observe him speaking to voters who have just arrived and
have not yet spoken to the judges; he looks up their address on the
poll sheet, then tells them they need to go to a different polling
place.

It dawns on me only days later that this pollworker's action is illicit and fraught with potential for abuse.

"Instructing
the voter" is a responsibility that is reserved to poll judges and is
forbidden to pollwatchers. And with good reason: It's possible for an
unscrupulous pollwatcher to misinform voters who he believes are
"unfriendly" to his candidate.

For instance, if voters are
directed to the wrong polling place, and get turned away there as well,
they might just give up and decide not to vote.

A poll sheet with identifying dots could help such a pollworker identify unfriendly voters.

5. My getting ejected from the polling place.

Two
roving troubleshooters arrive from the Chicago Board of Elections
(CBOE). I overhear the man with the poll sheets telling one of the
troubleshooters that someone was taking photos. I volunteer that I was
the person. The troubleshooter tells me that I must now leave and not
return, because taking photos in a polling place is illegal, except for
the newsmedia.

(During the previous week, I had spoken
personally with a CBOE attorney, Jim Scanlon. He told me that enforcing
this rule is up to the poll judges, that some poll judges will enforce
this rule and some won't. The concern, he said, is for preserving the
secrecy of the ballot and for keeping the polling process free of
interference.)

I ask if any of the judges is protesting my
action. One judge says she protests; she says she remembers "from years
ago" that taking photos is illegal. This judge did not protest to me
earlier, though she had more than twenty minutes to do so. None of the
other four judges (including the PPA) offer to protest.

I tell
the judges I will leave if they so direct, and I remind them that a
majority vote of the judges is required if pollworker is to be removed.

The
troubleshooter steps forward and tells the judges that the matter is
out of their hands. He asks whether I am going to leave or going to
wait for the police. I say, I'll wait. He then orders me to go sit
down, and interupts me when I try to speak further with the judges. I
go sit down.

The troubleshooter refuses to give me his name. He has no badge or name tag.

Later,
I again tell the judges that if they so vote, I will leave the polling
place. The troubleshooter again interrupts, and the judges remain
silent.

After fifteen minutes, two police officers arrive and ask me to leave. I leave peacefully with the officers.

Precinct 15 did not have enough judges and the call was made at 6:00 AM by another judge in the same place to send help.

Around
7:30 - 3 men pulled up holding official looking envelopes and went in.
I asked the older one where are you from?? Board of Elections he said.
I asked if he knew Lance Gough, since my husband and I know Lance. He
responded no. Then he spoke with the B. Stone precinct captain (Tom
Norton from the 47th ward - retiree from City Housing Dept.) which he
seemed to know, for a while and went inside. The precinct captain left
the polling place with his car, returned 15 minutes later carrying 3
cups of coffee from Dunkin Donuts which he went into the polling place
to give. Then he came outside again and stood there. I don't believe
they were from downtown CBOE. Their auto plates said MAR DIV 5. I asked
the same man who moved the electioniring cones further apart/away that
I was a judge and could help if they were short - he said no, they were
ok now.A. Glapa

The
election in the 4th Representative District was held using an
UNCONSTITUTIONAL BALLOT. Illinois Green Party Candidate Kathy Cummings
was unconstitutionally deprived a place on the ballot.

Then,although
she attemtpted to run as a write in candidate, apparently none of the
polling places in the 4th Rep. Dist. displayed in a prominent position,
as required by law, a list of write in candidates. And apparently no
polling place had write in instructions so the election judges could
properly instruct voters who wanted to vote for a write-in candidate.

And the IL Supreme Court may decide in January whether to take Kathy's appeal.

I
was a first-time poll-watcher for Tammy Duckworth, at a polling place
in a school in Lombard that was comprised of three precincts - 90, 109,
and 117, if my memory serves me right. I was there for the last shift,
from 4 till whenever we got out, which was around 9:30, I think.
Between 5 and 7 there were two African American women and one Latino
man who just coincidentally weren't on the rolls, though all of them
had voted before in that district - in the case of the Latino man, he
was the only member of his family who wasn't listed.

People told
me how important it was to be on friendly terms with the judges, and
someone had suggested to me that I might take in donuts. Seemed like a
good idea, particularly because it was around 4 o'clock. They were
appreciative and friendly, and all was well until the first challenge.
The first of the two African American women was told she couldn't vote
because her name wasn't listed, and she was on her way out of the
polling place when I stopped her, told her that I was a poll-watcher,
asked her what had happened, and asked her to stay until the matter was
resolved. She was very angry, and was glad to do so. She had not been
offered a provisional ballot. I called our legal hotline, who said they
would call the Board of Elections and get it straightened out. When I
got off the phone, there was an altercation going on between the woman,
who was refusing to leave, and this judge, this big white guy who
pointed a finger at me, shaking with anger, and told me he could throw
me out in a minute for disrupting the election. Somewhat carefully, and
mindful of the fact that he could indeed do just that, I reminded him
that I was within my rights, and I just wanted things to be fair, just
like I knew he did. He didn't say anything after that - just told me
that he had called the Board of Elections to ask if he should give the
woman a provisional ballot, and they had said NO. (Why in God's name
would he do that anyway? Didn't he know the law for himself? And as for
the Board of Elections...) The final outcome was that someone from the
County Commissioner's Office came out and instructed him to give the
woman a provisional ballot.

It was abundantly clear that the honeymoon period established by the donuts was over.

Next
was the Latino guy, and he had to wait a while (long enough for him to
fill out my affidavit), but finally was given a provisional ballot, no
sweat. When the other African American woman came, shortly before 7,
there was a problem again. I asked her too to stay, and she too was
angry, and she too emphatically told the judge she wasn't going to
leave until things were resolved. This time he left the room altogether
to call the Board of Elections, and he was gone a long time. Finally he
came back, and grudgingly gave her her provisional ballot. By now it
was well after 7.

The next part was pretty funny. I asked the
judges if they would give me a copy of the tape, because I had to know
the numbers. No, they said. I told them I had to be able to see the
numbers, and the big guy said I could see them on the wall - he
explained to the others that they'd be on the wall for the public to
see anyway. So this woman judge takes this very long tape and folds it
over and over, about three or four inches square, and scotch tapes it
all together and puts it up on the wall. I tell her I can't see
anything, and would she mind taking the scotch tape off? She said no,
she wouldn't, and I asked her if she'd take responsibility if I took it
off and inadvertently tore the voting tape. She said absolutely not. I
said I'd have to do it anyway, so I disentangled it, thank God without
tearing anything.

Reading it was something else. Finally a
woman judge who was rather nice took pity on me and offered her help;
she wasn't very good at reading it either, but together we figured it
out, and Lord was I grateful to her.

I called the office then,
and they told that there had to be a second tape. Feeling pretty stupid
that I hadn't realized that, I went back to the big guy and asked if he
had another tape. He grunted yes without looking at me, and handed it
to me right away.

About 9:30 I walked out of there furious.
Those three people had only gotten provisional ballots which would
almost certainly never be counted anyway - it wasn't until two days
later that I learned that they had I think it was 48 hours to prove
their identity or their ballots would be tossed anyway, and I'm quite
sure they didn't know that either. At least they had all felt better
for having been able to vote at all, so it was worth it for that - but
as far as the election was concerned, it almost certainly meant
nothing. Three people in two hours in one polling place. Multiply that
by how many hours in how many polling places, and how many people would
that be? Even without all the other horrors of malfunctioning machines
and everything else, that I knew were happening everywhere, not only
here but all over the country - those numbers alone would be not
insignificant.

This was a baptism by fire for this one
poll-watcher, for whom, even though I was aware of the problems and
angry about them, they had been to a degree abstract until I'd had just
a very small taste of them myself. Thank God there's a group like
ballotintegrity.org to join with in the long and what must often be
thankless struggle to get fair elections for us all.

Whem visiting the 26th precinct in the 49th ward as a pollwatcher, I was informed by the PPA there, TaraRoberts
that they had not had a DRE to use for the entire day. It was set up as
required and three people, one with a hearing impairment and two with a
vision impairment tried to use it. The voters who used the audio
apparatusstated that they could not get past the directions which
kept repeating. With normal use the other voter stated that only one
candidate for one race was on the screen and they could not get
anything else to show up.The PPAclosed down the machine and another was brought to the precinct. This machine was never functioning for this precinct.Initially when data for thisprecinct was supposed to be printed out by the DRE replacementdata for many precincts was printedinstead. An attempt to remedy this problem using the card activator did not help. As a result this machine was never used and no otherDRE was brought. Fortunately the Optiscan worked ok.